Dying Is The Dream
by Spikey44
Summary: Seven lives, seven deaths, seven Uchiha; the dreams wherein they die are the best they ever had. Some dare to call this justice.


**Dying Is The Dream**

_Disclaimer: I own nothing...that is Naruto related, anyway. _

_Uchiha Inuza:_

dies when his brother, beloved master, mighty war lord forced to pander to peace because he has finally found an enemy to love, snatches out his eyes. Inuza does not scream though he knows this pain will kill him. Inuza does not try to fight free as the shock of a betrayal he was born to see coming scythes through his mind and cuts his soul free with the snap of breaking bonds.

"Thank you otouko," Madara whispers in his ear as Inuza ebbs away, his body lowered lovingly toward the rich soil that will eternally cradle his rotting bones. Inuza does not manage to smile – he is too far gone already for that – but he thinks he might have whispered a stuttered last few words:

"You are welcome Onii-san."

Inuza dies so Madara can live to kill again.

* * *

_Uchiha Fugaku:_

dies when his son and heir, his pride and joy, shoves a katana through his abdomen. Fugaku barely feels the searing heat of the steel slicing upward towards his sternum. He is too busy looking down upon his wife of fifteen years. Mikoto lies at his feet and the moonlight sparks upon the elegant white gleam of her trachea through a thick corollary fringe of frayed skin. He thinks this is the cruellest smile he has ever seen, her throat split open with savage glee.

Itachi stares down at him and his eyes, wild and wide like the child he is, make Fugaku want to weep. The mangekyo spins and pinwheels around and around, a crazy dance of blood and corruption.

_Ah, my son, not that; never that. _

Fugaku falls upon Mikoto and a distant part of him wants to apologise to his wife, his weight must be uncomfortable and this demise lacks all dignity. The scent of blood and death, that hideous reek of offal and spoiled meat, assails his nostrils as his face falls against the tatami mats.

Fugaku closes his eyes and thinks he is almost glad to be dead. He cannot bear the thought of living a moment longer in this world where his precious son is a catspaw and his clan nothing more than carrion in the night.

* * *

_Uchiha Shisui:_

dies when he discovers he really cannot breathe underwater. It is a quick death, filled with the roar of the current and the darkness of waving fronds of river weed. There is pounding red hot pressure thundering in his skull and it feels like his eyes might burst and his blood explode out of his pores. He thrashes and he kicks amazed that his spindly cousin's body can weigh so much that he cannot shove him off his back.

Itachi's fingers dig like eagle claws into his scalp and the back of his neck and even after this Itachi will carry pieces of Shisui away with him under his nails. The blood will not wash clean and in remembrance Itachi will inscribe a ring with crimson. Still that is then and this is now. Head thrust under the surface of the Nakano he does not hear the apology, repeated over and over like a mantra from the lips of a boy in tears. It doesn't matter anyway because Shisui is already dead. He will never know the reason why.

* * *

_Uchiha Obito:_

dies under a rock. He dies because the boulder crushes him. He dies because he is suffocating on his own blood as the pressure of the weight on his pulverised body flattens his lungs. He dies for a boy he did not like and a girl who did not love him while his sensei was away winning a war Obito could not imagine ever ending. His death is selfless; his death has no meaning save as a reason for penance in the life of his team's only survivor.

Obito dies anonymous because everyone who truly knew him dies not long after. He dies to have his name carved on a rock and be forgotten, save by one lonely man who does not know what to do with the life he still has. This is what Obito dies for, a boy who did not like him, a girl who would not live, and a hero who could not save him. He dies a long way from home before he has the chance to live.

He dies in vain at nine years old. Ten years later the Third Hokage honours his sacrifice by ordering his entire family murdered.

* * *

_Uchiha Itachi:_

dies by his own design. Whether the final blow is Sasuke's or disease is irrelevant. The weasel is the architect of his personal tragedy and always has been.

He dies in pain and in blood just as he has lived. He dies believing in peace and making only war. He dies a traitor and a catspaw, a visionary and a deluded fool. He dies knowing the one he wished to save is the one he has ruined beyond repair. He dies with threads and loose ends left undone because the body failed and the spirit wavered at the end.

"Sorry Sasuke but this is it."

Itachi dies tired and broken at twenty-one.

* * *

_Uchiha Mikoto:_

dies ashamed. She dies unable to cry and she dies knowing that she has failed. Failed her clan, failed her husband; failed both her sons. She dies when her first born slits her throat from behind while she knelt to pray by the alter arranged to honour her forebears. She dies in confusion, unable to tell where all the blood has come from. The incense burns with the reek of copper and her parents and grandparents smile out of the picture frames dripping blood. Mikoto dies choking on silence with the moon in her eyes.

She dies, gasping like a landed fish, her blood spraying the air in a moonlight tainted mist, still trying to tell her son she loves him.

* * *

_Uchiha Sasuke:_

dies to tie up the loose ends and finish the pattern started by far greater men than he. He dies a cipher and a cautionary tale. He dies unable to tread water a moment longer, torn hither and thither in a riptide of death, betrayal, and hidden truths.

He dies denying a bond he hates and a friend who would erase all he is in favour of a more palatable foil. He dies branding pain into foolish hearts and tired souls alike. He dies because that is the only way to remain free. He dies by his own hand, because he is tired of living as a victim and hasn't the strength needed to play the villain.

He dies seeing the shock and the horror and the broken loss reflected in a pair of blue eyes that have always looked but never truly _seen_ him. As he falls, twisting the knife deeper into his own heart, he dares to call this victory.

Death is the Uchiha dream he has lived for all along.


End file.
